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Creator:
Haworth, M. E. (Martin E.)
Title(s):

Diary of Martin E. Haworth, at Fort Manoel, Malta.

Published/Created:
Malta, 1835.
Physical Description:
1 volume : illustrations ; 22 cm.
Holdings:
Rare Books and Manuscripts
DG989.4 .H39 1835
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
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Copyright Status:
Copyright Not Evaluated
Classification:
Archives & Manuscripts
Notes:
Haworth was in the 60th Rifles, and the son of Thomas Haworth of Barham Wood, Hertfordshire. His love Mary, was Lady Mary E. Leslie (1811-1893), sister to the Earl of Rothes, and they married on 11th August 1835 at Leslie House, Fifeshire. He assumed the name Leslie in March 1886, and died 2 November the same year. Late in life he was the author of two works, The Silver Greyhound (1880), and Road Scrapings, Coaches and Coaching (1883).
Bound in contemporary full calf.
Manuscript diary of Martin E. Haworth, a young English Captain stationed at Fort Manoel, Valetta, Malta, April 24th - May 5th, 1835. With pages of pen and ink sketches of life, and characters on Malta. His life is one of military drills, free time spent shooting and riding, but also acting in theatricals, playing "Young Fashion" in the Trip to Scarboro. He is much in love with Mary, who occupies his daily thoughts, and the journal covers the weeks before her return to England, where three months later they are to get married. The first leaf has a pen and ink drawing which appears to show him on his knees proposing to Mary. Fellow officers noted include Guy Gisbourne, Bunbury, Powys, Eversley, and George Spencer. A note at the end reads: "This book has met with a curious adventure - it has got itself put in quarantine ..."
The eighteen pen and ink sketches include: a soldier in a bearskin hat; "Fancy Dresses, Malta March 1835," depicting a man leading a bear on a chain; four men on horseback; "Return to Syracuse", depicting two men on horseback galloping home; "Introduction to the General at Syracuse by the Vice Consul"; duck shooting; the Bittern rigged sailing ship; the Marshal.
He awakes on his birthday: "April 24th - Everything must have a beginning, and so had I, either this day five & twenty, or this day six and twenty years ago; however, I am only going to put down what passes and not what has passed. I awoke, or rather did not awake, for I was kept awake all night by a very bad sore throat, hailed with great delight the first beams of sunshine which crept in through the cracks in my shutters at a very early hour, tried every remedy I could think of for a sore throat, without success or relief. I was in all the agonies of a port wine, vinegar, & cayenne pepper gargle when in walked Horn (my servant) with an immense and most beautiful bouquet, I was dazzled and delighted at once. Having a sort of glimmer that I had been thought of by somebody or other in my misery ..."
One morning: "Bunbury read the Articles of War - first time in his life !! He was deluded by the vain idea that he could read much faster than anybody else, but we to our horror discovered that he could not read at all and did much more than there was any necessity for by way of cutting the thing short - marched up to Florianne, had a long field day ..." "May 1st & Friday just found myself in orders for a march to St Paul's Bay ..."
Subject Terms:
Haworth, M. E. (Martin E.)
Leslie, Mary E., 1811-1893.
Malta -- Description and travel.
Form/Genre:
Diaries.
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